How to make a Windows Time Capsule

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Despite its jawdroppingly exorbitant cost, there is no denying that the Apple Time Capsule is one of the best backup solutions available. It’s wireless, so multiple computers can easily and conveniently use it, and OS X’s Time Machine software makes the entire backup process both easy and foolproof. The only problem, of course, is that Time Capsules are really designed to work with Macs — you can use them with Windows PCs, but then it just becomes a glorified Samba share.

A very expensive Samba share, too: $500 for a 3TB Time Capsule is a lot of money, even for your average Apple zealot — especially when you consider that you’re basically buying a pearly-white wireless router with a hard drive inside. Suffice it to say, if you’ve ever bought a wireless router, you’ll know that they can be bought for around $50; and portable 3TB hard drives are only $130. In other words, if you’re willing to do a little bit of legwork, you can make your own Time Capsule for about $200 — and if you’re a multi-OS household or office, you can even create a DIY Capsule that works equally well with Windows, Mac, and Linux. Having said that, this guide will focus on making a Windows Time Capsule, but there is a section at the end if Mac and Linux users also want to get in on the action.

The hardware

If you take a look at the back of an Apple Time Capsule, it’s basically a 4-port router with a USB port — it doesn’t even act as a DSL or Cable modem! To make your own Time Capsule, you need to pick up an 802.11n wireless Belkin or Linksys router with a 4-port switch and one or two USB ports. The latest models (around $60) seem to handle external storage fairly well, but if you opt for an older or cheaper model ($40-50), be sure to check some reviews beforehand. If you want a wireless router with built-in DSL or Cable modem, it’ll cost you around $100.

Hard drive-wise, you have two options: you can go the complete DIY route and buy an internal 3.5″ drive, a USB enclosure, and turn them into an external hard drive — or you can simply buy a ready-made portable hard drive from Seagate, Western Digital, or whoever your favorite manufacturer is. To be entirely honest, portable hard drives are so cheap that it’s almost not worth the hassle of building your own USB enclosure. Empty enclosures cost at least $15 — and today you can get a Western Digital My Book Essential 3TB for $129 from Amazon. You’d be hard pressed to find an internal 3.5″ drive for $115, that’s for sure. If you want to go a little cheaper, TigerDirect has a 2TB Iomega Select for $79 — and likewise, an internal version can’t be found for less than $70.

In most cases, you will want to plug your USB drive into a computer and format it before you continue. Wipe the drive clean, delete any “special” partitions, and format the entire drive as FAT32 — or NTFS if your router supports it.

Once you’ve got your wireless router and a formatted hard drive, grab a USB cable and connect them up, turn the router on — and then move on to the next step: configuration and software.

Could you be any more ignorant… the tech this entire guide is aimed at, is “cloning” the behavior of Time Machine/Capsule on Macs.
Think whatever you want, but Windows doesn’t have anywhere near such a elegant solution. (System restore is garbage)…
As for being thick, one could be just as ignorant and say anyone who “upgraded” to Windows 8 or 10 is a complete dumbfk that enjoys the Fisher Price UI

A wireless router that matches the features of the Time Capsule will set you back near $200, not $50. Also, the software listed as alternatives to Time Machine are just basic backup software, not the equivalent to Time Machine. I don’t think the author has ever used a real Time Capsule.

The main difference, IIRC, is the spectrum and modes.
The Apple Time Machine/Airport Extreme routers support 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g or 802.11n on multiple frequencies. Most other routers I’ve seen (especially at the $50 price) are 802.11g (maybe 11n if you get a great sale). They also have an out of the box option to offer two simultaneous networks on the same band, one public (which allows internet only access), and one private (you can reach all of your other machine sand devices). It’s still damn damn expensive for what it is though… from your link, it’s 110 more just to add a 2TB internal hard drive to the airport extreme…

It’s about the same price as an Airport Extreme, which you can also plug a USB drive into.

Timothy Karnes

I know buying Apple products is a price premium, but I have to say this: They just work. I had a top of the line Linksys router for $139 with all the extras, and in order to maintain wireless connectivity I had to keep a thumbtack next to it because I had to hit the reset button and reboot my PCs every 12 hours. I plugged in an Apple Extreme and haven’t touched the settings in months. Any device I’ve put the WPA2 password into sees it as soon as it’s in range and connects. No issues. I suspect the same for the Time Capsules.

Tim Wright

Simultaneous dual-band operation (2.4GHz and 5GHz), and, at least for me that’s a must-have. I bought an Apple AEBS a couple of years ago because, astonishingly, at the time, it was practically the *cheapest* dual-band wireless AP/Router.

With a little knowledge of home wiring, it would be possible to create an environmentally-sealed unit that provides secure and, most importantly, unseen data storage. Such a unit could be hidden inside a wall or buried in a crawl space. Anything less than a wire-by-wire search of the premises would miss it.

I have never ever ever seen a wireless N router WITH a USB port for under $100…ever. Adding the USB port is usually reserved for the higher level models and will run you at the very least ~$130-$200. Whenever I read an article and see the nice general terms for something followed by everything else given in specific terms including brand names and where to buy them at quoted prices I know that the author either didn’t research or is lying to make an article.

I did my research. I don’t quote exact prices or model numbers because they change regularly. I don’t want to write a guide for a specific model of Linksys router because you might not be able to get it in your country, or it might go out of production.

If you can buy a commodity 802.11n router and 3TB external hard drive, and get anywhere CLOSE to $500, I will eat my hat.

tw33k harbuck

I just picked up a Linksys e4200 from Best Buy on sale for $135.00. A quick look on Newegg shows a 3 TB Seagate for $139.99. Start chewing.

tw33k harbuck

I just picked up a Linksys e4200 from Best Buy on sale for $135.00. A quick look on Newegg shows a 3 TB Seagate for $139.99. Start chewing.

In the Software section you mention that Windows 7 Backup and Restore might be one of several “good solutions that mirror Time Machine’s automatic, incremental backup functionality.” I beg to differ. As far as I can tell, it will only do discrete scheduled backups but not “continuous, in-the-background coverage, like Time Machine.”

The closest you can get with Backup and Restore is to run a backup or make a new Restore Point after every file modification. And with the latter, you can’t even write your changes to an external drive.

Wouldn’t FBackup be a better option than True Image? After all, do you really want to attempt to back up an entire drive, if you’ve only changed one file on it that week?
I use FBackup to back up my ‘current’ folders every night (those being ones in which I store anything I might have changed that day, documents and images, etc.), and four days a week it also backs up the rest of my 2TB of hard drives, all automated so that it comes on late in the evening. Works fantastically for me.

Anonymous

“I did my research.”

About that, Mr. Anthony. You need to do it again on file systems. No external device should ever be formatted to NTFS, because you get volume corruption with any interruption in connection or power during a write operation, and it occurs far more easily than it should. FAT32 writes more safely but is a poor option because of the 4GB file size limit — anyone who needs to back up any larger files (family videos, etc) will find it impossible with a FAT32 backup drive. The correct answers are ExFAT and HFS+, depending on the user’s preference. I suspect for most Windows users, ExFAT will be preferred, while Mac users would be silly not to use HFS+.

Also, I think you might have had better premise integrity with this article if you compared your bundle of modules, wires, and software workarounds (and add in the price of a cabinet of some sort to hide the mess from the wife) to the $300 2TB Time Capsule with the set-it-and-forget-it Time Machine software. For many who do not tinker on their home systems, the overall value proposition there may be superior. (As one IT pro I know says, “I work on computers all day long. I don’t want to work on them at home. That’s why I own Macs.) I don’t think anyone would argue that the $500 3TB TC is good value; even Mac fans agree that the $200 delta for one extra TB is a lousy deal.

Tim Wright

Hello Mike,
I’m somewhat confused regarding your assertions around NTFS. Given that NTFS is a journalled filesystem, interruptions to connectivity or power should not affect the structural integrity of the filesystem (that’s the whole point of journalling). You might lose data due to the cacheing and lazy writing, but the filesystem should be intact. This is no different to using NTFS on an internal drive and e.g. losing power during a write. The only issue I have seen in this area is when a drive/subsystem fails to correctly implement flush/synchronize cache – any time storage claims it has committed data to stable store when it hasn’t, you are looking at a disaster.Would you be willing to comment further?

Anonymous

I know this is two weeks old, but I just noticed the reply in my email filter. Sorry about that.

Indeed, NTFS is journaled just like HFS+. That should, in theory, have prevented this problem. Apparently, the problem is that the master file table corrupts also, and the discrepancy between it and its mirror can’t be resolved when there is a discrepancy between file data and the table itself. Most of the time, when there is a power or connection interruption that hits at the right time (or the wrong time, depending on one’s point of view), the drive hangs on access attempts, and a disconnect and reconnect after that leaves the drive unrecognized (unable to mount). Just Google for “NTFS external HDD corrupted” and you’ll see plenty of info on this. This is a design flaw inherent to the NTFS file system and it’s anyone’s guess whether it is correctable without simply creating a new file system.

HFS+ doesn’t use MBR or MFT and thus is immune to this problem. FAT32 and ExFAT, of course, do not journal, but also won’t add the file to the FAT until it’s completely written, so it doesn’t matter if there is an interrupted write… it just creates fugitive data clusters that will one day be written over.

Anonymous

I know this is two weeks old, but I just noticed the reply in my email filter. Sorry about that.

Indeed, NTFS is journaled just like HFS+. That should, in theory, have prevented this problem. Apparently, the problem is that the master file table corrupts also, and the discrepancy between it and its mirror can’t be resolved when there is a discrepancy between file data and the table itself. Most of the time, when there is a power or connection interruption that hits at the right time (or the wrong time, depending on one’s point of view), the drive hangs on access attempts, and a disconnect and reconnect after that leaves the drive unrecognized (unable to mount). Just Google for “NTFS external HDD corrupted” and you’ll see plenty of info on this. This is a design flaw inherent to the NTFS file system and it’s anyone’s guess whether it is correctable without simply creating a new file system.

HFS+ doesn’t use MBR or MFT and thus is immune to this problem. FAT32 and ExFAT, of course, do not journal, but also won’t add the file to the FAT until it’s completely written, so it doesn’t matter if there is an interrupted write… it just creates fugitive data clusters that will one day be written over.

Tim commented on the NTFS thing better than I ever could — so I’ll skip to your second point.

Personally, I would put this DIY Time Capsule in a cupboard somewhere, or in a guest bedroom, or… anywhere, really — it’s wireless! It’s not that messy, either — it’s just two slim boxes on top of each other with a USB cable running between them. You could tape them together… buy some Apple decals… perhaps spray paint them white… No one would be any the wiser.

Tim commented on the NTFS thing better than I ever could — so I’ll skip to your second point.

Personally, I would put this DIY Time Capsule in a cupboard somewhere, or in a guest bedroom, or… anywhere, really — it’s wireless! It’s not that messy, either — it’s just two slim boxes on top of each other with a USB cable running between them. You could tape them together… buy some Apple decals… perhaps spray paint them white… No one would be any the wiser.

Anonymous

I paid $21.87 for an iPad 2 32-GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic

Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $ 38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS.

I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially

when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $ 657 which only cost me

I’m fairly sure that routers share these drives with Samba — much in the same way that FreeNAS abstracts the filesystem on any drives in a NAS setup. Windows can’t read UFS, but that doesn’t stop me from reading and writing to that drive over the network.

I admit, I’m not fully up to speed on HFS+, though. I know Time Machine requires some special features of HFS+ — but perhaps Samba can take care of those. Not sure.

There is an easy way to backup mac to pc. Just download mac time capsule from http://www.backupitnow.com The application will run on the PC, then you can choose the folders on PC as time machine ‘s backup storage destination.

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